Interview with Roxette - 1991

Rep: Soon you will go on a world tour. Welcome here, nice that you could come.

Per&Marie: Thank you.

Rep: How do you feel?

Marie: Good.

Per: Great.

Marie: Nice to be at home.

Rep: Now there is not too much time left. How many weeks will you be at home in Sweden?

Per: It will be some time, then we start the tour again, it will be a long one, perhaps one year or less or more.

Rep: Perhaps you count about 150 concerts in one year. How do you keep in form for that? As you must have a good condition, right?

Marie: I think it depends on every person. For me the more normal I try to live the better I feel. If you start to train and run can be difficult, I think you should behave normally.

Rep: So you don’t have any training.

Marie: I just spend my time with recording songs; I don’t have time for training. As long as you can get to sleep 8 hours so that the heart has a good rest, it is ok.

Per: You can’t wake up one hour earlier in the morning and go to the gym at the hotel, if I can say like that.

Rep: No. It depends on how difficult the day will be. Perhaps you will have to do that, too.

Per: Yeah, to get used (laughs)

Rep: If you live like that, I mean like the year you are waiting for, this life is very strange, very artificial. You don’t have contact to anyone, you cannot go to shops, you cannot meet your friends or families as before. Don’t you feel that you neglect them?

Marie: Oh, yes. Sometimes it feels like that. But at the same time we have a lot to do. We have been on stage for more than 10 years. You can have a rest as well, we have experience with that. You just grow up all the time.

Per: It is important to do also other things in Roxette if you have the chance, to live another life, but it is not so easy because this takes 24 hours a day.

Rep: Marie said that she had travelled by the underground train once just to see that she is a human being. Is it true?

Marie: (laughs) Well, you exaggerate a bit, but...why not?

Rep: Just to enjoy the normal life as well.

Per: But we work all the time, we travel, we have our activities so it is clear that you can become a zombie in the end. And it is not so good, of course, but it often can be really creative.

Rep: But do you agree with each other when it comes about creativeness? As there is still a lot to do: release, sell, and promote what you have done. You have concerts...

Per: At the beginning we thought that it takes a lot of time to create an album, to keep on making music, but if we work like this, it is 95% promotion, I mean we give interviews and all things like this, we sign disks. This can be a part of creativeness; it can have a positive effect on a song. It’s a bit sad, but it is a good effect on what we have done.

Rep: You get a lot of money from this, we will not count it now, but does it change your lives in a way? I always count my money for an ice-cream, but I think you can afford a lot of nice things.

Marie: We are never at home; we just travel all the time...

Rep: What is the meaning of this money to you?

Per: Me, for example, I have invested money in a studio where you can work easier. You can make your life comfortable. I have bought an apartment in Stockholm, as we work a lot there with recordings. It is more like this we spend money than in a luxury life. It is just to make ourselves more comfortable.

Rep: Per and Marie have a long career behind. We can have a look at some images from their older career. Watch the haircut, first of all!


Rep: When you do videos like this (Fading Like a Flower), for example, it feels like you make an advertisement for Sweden. Do you feel that you promote Sweden when you work?

Marie: I think so, sometimes. Because in all interviews they ask us about Scandinavia and Sweden and...

Rep: Which is the most common thing that you have heard?

Per: That there are polar bears in the streets.

Rep: That is not true! But this is still believed...

Per: And it was thought that Switzerland was the capital of Sweden.

Marie: And that Denmark is the capital of Scandinavia. I don’t remember others...

Rep: After you saw these videos, do you get ashamed of anything? Is there anything that disturbed you?

Marie: Well, we thank God that we have changed! (laughs) But this is how it has been.

Per: There are quite many years since then, it was about 1979 – 1980. We are different now.

Rep: But after such a long time, you have started to imitate an ambulance siren...

Marie: What? (laughs)

Rep: Is it true?

Marie: No! (laughs)

Per: It sounds credible, I think.

Marie: I don’t understand.

Rep: So you haven’t done it!

Marie: NO! (laughs)

Rep: Here is a picture with you that will be used for a stamp, have you seen this? This is the new stamp that will be printed later this year.

Per: October.

Rep: Yes. Now you are officially Sweden’s ambassadors. You must feel this in a different way, right?

Per: No, I don’t think so. The old stamp had a long story until it became official. But they are really nice.

Marie: It feels like we have died. (laughs)

Rep: Regarding the Americans, I have heard that story that you have succeeded there by the help of a student who has taken a disk of yours there. Has he got any recompense for that? Have you sent him any flowers or chocolate?

Marie: Yes, we have had a huge party with him in Minneapolis, he has got gold disks, so he is really proud and glad for that.

Rep: How do you punish the record companies when they refuse you?

Per: Well, they say that they haven’t heard the disk. But this is typical for the American music, if you come from Sweden, you don’t have priority, you are not number one on the list of disks they should listen to.

Rep: In the end, I have to say that all people have their good and bad sides. What about you? Marie, which is Per’s worst side?

Marie: He NE-VER comes in time! (both laugh)

Rep: Per, which is Marie’s worst side?

Per: She can eat as much as possible without putting on weight. (both laugh)

Rep: But all of us have seen your best side: when you sing! “Fading Like a Flower”, for example.